Happy Halloween

Every year we seem to hear that Christmas (I'm sorry to use the 'c' word in such a gratuitous fashion, but there it is) is becoming more and more commercialised. That's probably true, but having not been born until the 1970s it was already pretty far gone before I was even aware of it. However, what I have noticed during my comparatively short life (so far) is the gradual commercialisation of Halloween.

Perhaps, after a moment's reflection, commercialisation is the wrong word. We aren't yet at the stage where people send each other Halloween Cards (wishing each other a ghastly day, presumably). A better word might be 'sanitisation' (if that actually is a word) by which I mean that Halloween has become marketed, quantified, neatly assimilated into becoming just another 'significant' day on the calendar. When I was little it was never anything but a reason for us to draw witches, ghosts and pumpkins at school, and if it had any importance at all it was that it meant Fireworks night was only five days away. I won't allow myself to digress too much, but I will just mention in passing that when we were little I would say the majority of people still lit fireworks at home - I can remember us in the back garden, with the trusty sealed tin, with my dad as MC, and I can also still remember the incredibly compelling, even addictive, sight and smell and sound of sparklers. Nowadays Fireworks night is by far the lesser of the two events, with only public displays apparently keeping the tradition alive. Only one or two local shops have just a very few fireworks on sale; but there's hardly a shop that doesn't have a Halloween selection - whether it be full witch or skeleton costumes, or chocolate eyeballs, they're all getting in on the act.

So back to Halloween then. Although I don't want to point the finger, I'll force myself, and I think the blame lies well and truly with our American cousins. I don't think anything akin to 'trick or treat' existed here until the last 10-15 years, and it has arrived simply because the children of those years have been immersed in US culture, even more than we 70s kids were, brought up on a diet of US action shows. The insidious infection starts early too - my daughter once told me that her uncle (my brother) lives 'just a couple of blocks away'!

I was late leaving work tonight, and as I drove through the dark streets of town at around 6 pm, there were a few groups of trick or treaters already out on the prowl. Normally perfectly sensible parents had gleefully sent their children out into the dark wearing nothing but black (well, except for the skeletons) and this rather reckless behaviour is just one indication of the grip that Halloween seems to have on us now. Just as letting a child go out virtually invisible flies in the face of all those 'be safe be seen' campaigns, so sticking a dead tree in your sitting room in December flies in the face of all logic - but in both cases it seems perfectly reasonable in context. In the distance this evening I saw a pair of red horns, and for a fleeting moment I had a vision of some poor child sent out into the night got up as a Nimon. On closer inspection, of course, he was nothing of the sort (I say he - I suppose there could have been a girl under there) but was in fact Darth Maul. Ironic, perhaps, that trick & treating didn't happen back in the 1970s, when it would have given us all a legitimate excuse to dress up as a Doctor Who monster. Ah well...

On the rather darker side, when I popped into the garage on the way home I noticed a sign attached to the till warning the cashiers 'not to sell any eyes or foam to children today' - which I guess is a move to avoid any over-enthusiastic trickers from hurting or seriously scaring anybody. I was never a gregarious child, except by default (my older brother being, as a youngster, even more shy than me) so would never have been attracted to trick or treating; but although I cannot understand it, I wouldn't say I'm bothered by the idea of it. Where it does becomes questionable, though, is where, inevitably, unfortunately, the lust for candy (sorry, for sweets) or just for simple mischief, drives the kids to overdo it. Going back for a moment to the relationship between October 31st and November 5th, the number of accidents from the latter has probably gone down over the years. I would guess that the reverse is true of Halloween.

Not that the 'sanitisation' of Halloween is necessarily a bad thing, over zealous tricks aside. I'm always amazed by the people (usually religious people) who protest vehemently against the celebration of such an event. Its origins may be in black magic, but in 'mainstream' terms Halloween is no more an occult event than Christmas is a religious one - both have drifted far from their roots to become 'just' dates. I'm quite sure that there'll be people out there tonight sacrificing goats and generally doing their "Stones of Blood"/"K9 & Company" routine, but for most of us Halloween is pumpkins, witches, and (yes) trick or treat. I ought to balance out this paragraph by pointing out that although both my parents are Methodist Ministers, neither of them has ever gone what I will objectively label as 'wacko' and gone out trying to ban Halloween - indeed my Mum actually has a Harry Potter book, and isn't ashamed to admit it (although to be fair I don't believe she's ever read it).

Mention of my Mum rather irksomely leads me to shoot my own argument in the foot (parents, tt!) as I believe she may have been the 'victim' of one of the earliest ever trick or treat sightings in the UK (well, in the Curnow household anyway). Between 1976 and 1982 we lived in Carlisle (which is, for the geographically-challenged, the last interesting thing before Scotland) and on one of those Halloweens a young lad came to the door. He recited the following ditty to my Mum: "The Sky is Blue, The Grass is Green, Have you anything for Halloween." Understandably, back in those dark ages, my Mum had never heard of trick or treat, and asked the boy what exactly he was looking for. Whether his nerve failed him, or whether he was in fact as much in the dark as my Mum, I don't know, but he rather unhelpfully replied that 'anything' would do. My Mum decamped to the kitchen, returning after a minute or two with a can of peas. The boy took them and went. Perhaps understandably, we were never bothered on a Halloween again. Whether that was because my Mum had been labelled as mean or as crazy, well I'll leave you to make up your own minds.

Before anybody thinks that I am putting down Halloween, I'm really not, it's just that I have never looked on it as anything more than just another day, and I find it requires a real effort on my part to do so. My daughter, on the other hand, is a card-carrying convert. On Monday she said to me, in the same tone of voice you might normally reserve at the age of 6 for Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy, that it was Halloween week. Lacking anything enthusiastic to say I settled for an encouraging 'yes' but this seemed in the circumstances totally inadequate. She's been to a Halloween party tonight - dressed as Scooby Doo - and has just come in moaning because my wife wouldn't let her go trick or treating. I think we might save that horror (no pun intended) for another year....

So, to sum up, what does all this show us? Well, primarily how easily distracted I am. Having felt incredibly guilty at the abilities of Lissa and Si (Tom Baker) Hunt to produce works of brilliance on a daily (I'll say it again, because it is that amazing - daily) basis, I thought I ought to try and knock something out at least twice a month if only to justify having a banner with my name on it. I had every intention of treating you all to my views on Scooby Doo, but as you can see his role has been reduced to a passing costume reference only. When November 5th comes around next Wednesday, I doubt that my daughter is going to wake us up at six am excitedly telling us that it's Guy Fawkes day. She'll probably save that routine for Christmas - whether it's over-commercialised or not.

Happy Halloween!